Ep.28 Supporting Systemic Equity Part 2: Right Relationship

Across these 3 episodes, Katie talks with Michelle Davis, faculty member and Director of Systemic Equity Initiatives at CRR Global, about supporting systemic equity. As humans, we have diversity – we think differently and hold different perspectives and ideas – that’s what makes us unique and different and should be celebrated. Once we start to create fear based on those differences - we begin to dehumanize groups of people and lock them out of opportunities. This 3-part series builds along the lines of the 3-levels of intelligence (Emotional Intelligence EQ, Social Intelligence SI and Relationship System Intelligence RSI). If you've not already listened to it already, do check-out part 1 first; what's mine to do? In part 2, Katie and Michelle look at social intelligence. Topics include:

• Right Relationship and working for the power of me and you
• The stories and beliefs that shape our reality
• Breaking down divisions and doing the work together
• What's mine to do and how can I actually do it?
• Sharing opportunities

Michelle Davis is a faculty member and Director of Systemic Equity Initiatives at CRR Global. Michelle’s professional journey has included a season of providing therapy, as a licensed professional counselor, to the most vulnerable among us; a season of developing and delivering experiential learning events that challenge and disrupt the status quo when the status quo no longer serves; and currently, a season providing leadership coaching as a certified organization and relationship systems coach and leading diversity, equity and inclusion efforts as a professor and director. In her work at the University of Colorado and previous experience working with systemic racism in other university systems, Michelle was the principal developer of a coaching program focused on Race Intelligence (RQ(™)). This program seeks to increase Race Intelligence by guiding others to increase their capacity to lean into discomfort with the intention of becoming aware of race and racism and its influence on oneself, others, and societal institutions; and use this increased intelligence or awareness consciously to dismantle intrapersonal mindsets, behaviors, and systemic representations of racism.  Michelle earned her master’s degree in counselling at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and, as well as being an ORSC-certified coach, is a Licensed Professional Counselor, a trained Co-Active Coach, and a Certified Dare to Lead Facilitator.


For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to build stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time

We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.

Transcript

Key 

KC – Katie Churchman 

MD – Michelle Davis 

[Intro 00:00 – 00:06] 

KC – Hello and welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast. We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity, to nature, to the larger whole. I’m your host, Katie Churchman, and in this episode I’m continuing on my conversation with Michelle Davis, faculty member and Director of Systemic Equity Initiatives at CRR Global, about supporting systemic equity. As humans, we have diversity – we think differently, hold different perspectives and ideas – that’s what makes us unique and different and should be celebrated. Once we start to create fear based upon those differences - we begin to dehumanize groups of people and lock them out of opportunities. This three-part podcast series builds along the lines of the three levels of intelligence - emotional intelligence, social intelligence and relationship system intelligence. If you’ve not already listened to it, do listen to part one: what’s mine to do. In part two Michelle and I look at social intelligence. Topics including right relationship and working for the power of me and you; the stories and beliefs that shape our reality; breaking down divisions and doing the work together; What's mine to do and how can I actually do it; and sharing opportunities. So in this episode I bring you Michelle Davis talking about supporting systemic equity and social intelligence. 

KC – Michelle, welcome back to the Relationship Maters podcast. 

MD – Thank you Katie, I’m glad to be back. 

KC – I’m looking forward to building on our conversation, so last time we looked at supporting systemic equity from that system of me and today we’re going to be building into that second level of Relationship Systems Intelligence, the social intelligence. So talk to me about how, how we can lean into this more to support system equity. 

MD – I believe that we were made to be in relationship with one another, nothing really works or is successful for us internally or even externally without navigating in the relationship with one another. I can’t think of a time in history where someone has created something magnificent, an inventor, you know, done it by themselves. There’s always been a part of something else which is that relationship with other people. As it relays to systemic equity, it’s the division that keeps us from being in authentic relationship with one another, the right relationship. And right doesn’t necessarily mean perfect, it doesn’t necessarily mean without conflict, it just means authentically and working to do, working for the power, the me and the you as opposed to just the me. And if we were doing that we would be working more powerfully together to address some of the deeper systemic equity issues that exist. 

KC – I’m curious, do you feel that our individualistic societies, particularly in the west, create these divisions because they’re more broadly, it’s me vs you and there’s that tribal like nature that then creates those divisions you mentioned. 

MD – Absolutely. We create boogie men and enemies out of the other, you know, in order to do that, just to, in some people’s minds, I would say the dominant group’s minds, create that division for what they might perceive as protection. Protection of something, maybe protection of jobs, protections of their home, protections of their safety. They’ll use it to other-ise people instead of just pausing and asking yourself why am I doing that, maybe I should get to know my neighbor and say who’s really there, and when I say who’s really there, what’s beyond the exterior that I see? Whatever my neighbor might look like there’s something that we share in common, there’s something that can bridge who we are because we’re all from the human family. And if you think about flowers, flowers are so diverse, so are trees, there’s so many of them. But when we as human beings, given that we’re supposedly the higher order animal in this world, we see someone, and I’m guilty of the same thing, and we start to automatically create these stories about those folk and that starts to create the division. Like how are you going to hurt me? How might you attack me? And I don’t mean just in a physical sense, just in a sense of- it’s like the thinking you’re gonna take something from me so therefore I need to guard up, armor begins to grow. But it would be so powerful if I just took that armor down and got to know who my neighbor is and talked with them, then we could see that maybe we’re not so scary. Maybe the stories that society has told us over and over and over again, about the other, is not the truth. How do we find the truth? And we can only find that out if we get into conversation with each other. We can only do that when we talk. 

KC – This is really powerful and it makes me think that many of our stories are generalizing, broad brushstroke assumptions about who someone is or what a group of people are and it’s lazy, I think we mentioned this last time, it’s lazy but at worse it’s malicious. And I wonder sort of if we’ve been trapped in certain stories that maybe we inherited, who knows, how do we start a conversation that starts to break down those limiting stories? 

MD – Well that’s the hardest part, which is probably why we don’t do it. My think is to start to have that conversation is one, if there’s a space where we can start to equip each other in reducing our fear and increasing our bravery and just saying hi, or how are you today, this is the hardest part but what comes up for me is that somebody has to take the first step and in order to do that we have to let go of the stories that we’ve been told, the stories that have been created, and it’s like sit down and have a cup of tea. Maybe one of the first places to start is to practice. Just, you know, maybe before you go have that conversation with your neighbour or your co-worker, whoever it might be, just practice in your mind. What would it be like if I went over to this person and said you know, there’s a lot of division in this world and I sense the division between you and I, because we haven’t had a conversation, but I’d like to break that down and how might we be able to do that. It’s like having that pre-conversation in your head so that you can prepare yourself then actually doing it. What is it that’s calling you to do that, if anything, and people that are super, super frustrated, myself included with all of the inequities that exist within society, we talked last time about what’s mine to own, if I want to start to break those down that’s one thing that’s mine to own. So I start with that thinking about what’s important here for me to start to break down these divisions and I had start to become the change and part of that change is to lead the conversations and not be afraid. If someone says hmm, no, I don’t want to talk to you, I think you’re this, this, this and this, yes that’s gonna hurt, that’s gonna cause an injury, but if you’ve done enough of your me-work you know that’s not about you, it’s about the person over there who’s creating more walls, and those walls are a reflection of fear. And there might be a way for you to internalize that as a level of personal power, in a way, that someone holds you in that regard of fear, it’s sort of like a paradox, not that you want to hold on too ooh, I make people scared of me, but reflecting on why do I make people scared of me? Why does that happen? But it’s not mine to own but it’s mine to be empowered by because there’s something about me that’s powerful. I think that’s what I’m trying to say. There’s something about me that’s powerful if someone rejects me, so it’s like flipping that and not personalizing it, yes it will cause injury in the moment but build yourself and keep going forward because that person’s story, if not every person’s story, so you’ve just gotta keep going. If you’re bothered by inequity issues, what’s mine to do and how can I do it? How can I actually take action? 

KC – This is making me think of a video that’s been circling on LinkedIn from Denmark and they brought loads of different groups of people into a big studio so there were the high earners, there were the nurses, there were the people who were unemployed, so many different types of groups and they all stood in their circle and then they’d have to come out of their circles around different questions like who here is lonely, who here is bisexual, and suddenly they realized that they had so much more in common across these divisions that normally, probably they wouldn’t necessarily talk to people in these other categories, if you want to call it that. 

MD – Exactly, yeah. 

KC – And it’s sort of a shame that we’re not having these conversations and I wonder how we create more opportunity for this as well, because I’m sure some of the things like the area we live in are going to probably impact who we interact with. So how can we create more opportunity for these kinds of conversations? 

MD – A lot of companies, post the unfortunate death of George Floyd, have allowed or created affinity groups. Now, affinity groups traditionally you’re thinking about the people you have commonalities with, the people that you know, look like you, whether you’re Latinx or African American and Black, or Muslim. You get into these conversations and those groups are good for healing and support and feeling like you’re not alone, but there’s nothing to advance us towards bridging the division. So those affinity groups are created, maybe there’s an opportunity to mix some of them so that you start to get into conversations, you get out of your bubble, your identity bubble, where you get sad over and over again about things that you kind of already know or are learning from your group, for some of the same kind of challenges that exist in common with you, that’s not bad, I’m not saying that that’s wrong – I think there’s an and, and that and is how do we create those kind of groups where they’re diverse, where we can have those conversations, where we can listen and learn from one another. And when we start to do that we’re staring to build the tentacles of relationship that reduces the othering because now I know you, it’s hard to hate someone you really deeply know, because you know their story, you know what their story is, you know how they arrived there. It creates empathy and when you have empathy for someone it also reduces the division, so how do we get into those kinds of environments where we can have conversations with a group of diverse people, not fear it but really use it to leverage our own understanding, not our own awareness and our own empathy, for the walk someone else has had in their life. This is sort of an off-topic but relatable, I have a hard, like, I can get really hard about certain things that exist in society, it’s just simply wrong, it’s just wrong to do that. And I came across something the other day where someone did cause harm to another person, but what was different about this person, when normally I would just shove it off as that was wrong, that was wrong, what was different is I learned more their story. They helped me to see how they landed in the position that they landed in to do what they did. There was remorse there, there was sorrow there, there was shame there in the choice that was made, but I also saw the story behind that person and it made it that much more powerful for me to see it through their lens and how they landed right there. We don’t ever get to do that because we don’t ever get into relationship and conversation with one another. We make these stories the truth and the truth is not necessarily the reality. 

KC – This is really interesting, this both and space that you’re speaking to where we have our own conversations and then we come together. I remember, after George Floyd’s death there was a big push towards allyship and it was quite clumsy, in fact. I remember being part of a training one time where a white woman called out the only Black woman in the group and asked how can we be allies for you and it was very awkward and uncomfortable for that lady, and so then I think there was a big push to people need to do their own work, but then to your point we’re not coming back to that we space, or maybe we’re not even doing our own work at all and so then that leads to more issues but I think that our land needs to occur at the same time maybe? Co-exist with these separate spaces, would you say? 

MD – I would agree with that, I think there is a level of work that we all can do, and I’m gonna separate the dominant culture who has been blind to so much of what has lived in their secondary for so many long. So, yeah, there is work that they can do alone but they can’t do it all alone. I remember someone actually asked me this question when I was presenting at a conference, that shouldn’t people, you know, there’s a theory that white people should go and do their own work. The dominant culture should go and do their own work. Yes, and they have to do the work in partnership with those that are marginalized because where we’re asking them to go do their own work doesn’t necessarily lift the blinder and it’s so one dimensional. When you read an article, that’s one dimensional. When you read a book, that’s one dimensional. It’s one person’s perspective, one person’s story, that may not be my story. It may not be the story that exists for a friend of mine or a family member of mine. We have commonalities but if we’re just using that one-dimensional aspect of learning and doing our work we’re missing out on so much more that we could be building in connection and relationship with other people. You can’t necessarily just achieve empathy by reading a book about inequities or racism. You have to go to the next level which is getting into relationship with other people. That’s one part of it but it cannot be the sole part of it. We all have to do this together. We didn’t get here by ourselves, no one got here just by ourselves, we have to do it together. There was someone that once said something to me, can people that, can the people that are causing the harm be a part of the solution? Can the dominant group that is causing the harm be a part of the solution without their own healing? Possibly, here’s ways to we can heal together. If you’re causing the harm how can I tell you that was hurtful or that thing resulted in z, y and z. If I’m able to share that with you in my story, in my way, that to me does more, creates more movement than saying that you’re part of the problem, you are causing the harm and therefore you need to take a seat, and not have a conversation with me until you’ve done your work. I’m part of your way. I am part of your work. Others might say well then you’re putting yourself out there for more pain or othering – that may be true but my goal is not to protect myself all of the time, my goal is to be a bridge for the division. And sometimes that is not easy, sometimes that effort is hard, but then I have to have a place to recover so that I can be ok as I continue to go forward. 

KC – This is such an interesting point around right relationship because if we want to create right relationship across these divides we have to do it together, it has to be a two-way dialogue and I think either it’s been happening separately or one side or the other has been dictating how to be and that’s not really moving us in that direction, we’re not creating systemic equity, we’re just creating different versions of the divisions. 

MD – Yeah. Different versions of the divisions. I love that. I’ll go back to what powerful thing has anybody ever done alone? Even when Martin Luther King was organizing and marching he engaged and invited white people along to those marches as well. And in fact, because some of those white people were there, some of the news media started to pay more attention when it got really graphic and hateful, with the dogs and the water hoses, the new media were there as was some white people. If I had been watching at that time my question would have been what has your favor? What have felt so powerful and so meaningful to you that you’re there because you don’t have to be. You don’t have to be walking with these people, these African American and Black people, trying to achieve liberation from Jim Crowe and systemic racism, all of that, you’re walking with them but you don’t have to be. I would wanna get really curious about that. There’s something powerful about that to me. There’s something powerful about all people, are those people who were walking, but when you don’t have to be, you do not have to be there, that makes me wonder and it also gives me hope that there’s something in us that wants to bridge this, even if it’s at a cost to ourselves. 

KC – That’s a brilliant example, why were you there when you didn’t have to be? And I guess, what’s our version of that now? Because I think so often in society as I mentioned before, we are divided, often by our location, where we live, and how do we then create those opportunities to be somewhere where we don’t necessarily have to be but we want to be because it’s the right thing to do for right relationship. 

MD – Well I think, when people say do your work, at least my understanding of what is meant by that is go read a book and understand the impact of racism. Or read some articles, watch a movie, watch videos – that kind of thing. That’s good but maybe your work is really, as the dominant group that has had this living in their secondary for so long, maybe there work is why did I not pay attention? 

KC – Yeah. 

MD – Why did I disengage? What is it about me that is able to live in a society and allow that to be ok. Really getting curious about that and also understanding when you want to retreat because of uncomfortable – this is uncomfortable for me, I feel blamed, I feel shame, I feel this wasn’t anything that I caused, I didn’t create this but it is being upheld by an action. Why am I not acting? Really sourcing those, asking, getting curious about why for yourself, relaying back to the first calm so that you can really equip yourself to stay in the conversation because it’s not easy, it’s easy for you to step out because you don’t have to be there, but recognize that your liberation is tied up in the liberation of all other people. You’re not, you’re pretending that you’re liberated, you’re pretending to go back to whatever is is that’s the most comfortable but you just pushed a whole group of people to the side by doing that, by saying that that’s really not my problem and not staying, like sitting in the fire, that book is called, stay in the fire, staying in the hard work. Metals, jewels, all those things, all those brilliant elements that we have on earth, they go through a process and that process is not necessarily easy to come out and have that beautiful diamond or that gorgeous ruby or whatever it might be. There’s a process for shaping that and it’s not easy. I use that analogy for those that want to retreat out of the conversation because they don’t have to be there but they should be there if they’re wanting more for themselves or their children or society, to start to turn down away from othering people and to becoming more in relationship with people by understanding them. Staying in, I would say, I’m gonna say right relationship, be in a connection with them and hearing the hard thing and not running from the hard thing. 

KC – Yeah, and that staying in the conversation feels really powerful. Staying in the conversation when you don’t have to be. It made me think that, so often people go into this work thinking oh, I’ll do it for other people but really it’s for us! And it’s been shown in science that our telomeres which directly correlate with how long we’re going to live, they’re impacted from everyone within our community. So it doesn’t matter if you’ve created this lovely sort of guarded communities with wealth and influence, your life span is going to be affected by people who haven’t got those opportunities and so I think it is for us, but we don’t see it like that so often and I think that’s sometimes how we get this saviour syndrome, it’s always going to be for us, it’s not just a one way street. 

MD – Exactly. It’s always gonna be for us. So there’s something, I was saying to someone the other day, stress takes a toll on our body and even if you don’t think that you’re stressed, if you just sort of pay attention and become really aware of your body you can notice the furrow of your brow, you can notice the tension in your shoulders, you can notice all those pieces when you’re driving down the street and someone jumps in front of you, causes stress and reaction, stress takes a toll on our body. So does racism. The systemic equity issues that takes a toll on all of us, recognize that piece that you’re not saving yourself by not having the conversation. 

KC – Yeah. So this isn’t about saving at all, it’s about being at service to humanity. 

MD – Exactly. It’s about being in service to humanity. And we’re all human beings at the end of the day but we come in all shapes and sizes and colors and hues, with different attributes but we all have blood running, red blood running through us. We all have a beating heart. We all have a brain. We all have these things. Those are our commonalities. We all feel emotion. We all feel those things, we get angry, we get sad, we get frustrated, we get all of those things, so how are we different? The way that we’re different is the experiences that get created for us as we come into this world. Those experiences shape those world views, shape the way we engage and interact with other people and shape so many other things, I won’t go down that road but that’s the experience within society, that you inherit it, that we are inherited into. We didn’t ask for it, babies didn’t ask for it. Many of the young men and the not so young men that have died at the hands of police, they were babies once, they didn’t ask for it. They inherited the way society is now because we create these make believe differences at the level where we’re all human. And in those differences we wanna demonize those as opposed to recognize this is my fellow human being right here. The effort to dehumanize creates those divisions but how can we remove that and risk that by seeing each other as just human, complex and beautiful diversity. Just like a flower. So I’m gonna get curious about why, why do we continue to uphold that? Especially if you’re wanting to be an ally. I’m really reflecting on how, how that is upheld, and not just allyship, I think all of it, how are we upholding that? 

KC – You’re reminding me of a meditation practice that I’ve been leaning into recently that’s all about point of contact. And it’s about being with your experience, so maybe a sensation, without a story. So the real sort of sensor. So opposed to there’s an ache in my back, even that’s a story and I suddenly broad brushstroke it with what it means. But if I really look at it it’s changing, it’s moving, it’s all these different things. And when we think about color, I mean there’s such a spectrum and yet we’re so quick to just put these categories out there, and we then don’t see and I wonder even if like the way we categories is limiting our ability to lean in and to really be with the sense data of our lives and of our relationships. 

MD – Absolutely. Because the story comes before me. The story of me is created before you know me. You’re already making up in your mind who I am and who I’m not. What I can do and what I can’t do. What you need to guard against. And I’m not just saying – I do the same thing, we all do it. You know, there’s that concept called the ladder of influence, we climb that ladder in nano-seconds, really quickly. But it would be amazing if we just slow down, like you were saying with the pain in your back, if you slow down and just notice what it might be doing in your body. If you slow down and notice how we’re climbing that ladder, and check ourselves and come back down, like how do I know what I know? How do I know what I think I know about this person? You’d realize you don’t. You really don’t know anything, you’ve never been in conversation with that person. Now at the end of the day, once you get in conversation, if you don’t like that person – that’s fine! But at least now you know because everything is not for everybody, you know, we all rub each other in wrong ways but when we go to the higher level of thinking about systemic equity and how we can address that and what is ours to own, at least now, even though I may not like you as a person, attributes of your personality, I may no longer be scared of you. I may no longer be making up a story that’s not really true about you. 

KC – And, maybe, you can connect as human to human as opposed to this story that gets in the way of that human connection. 

MD – I think it would be amazing if, we make up stories about the people in prison, right, and in the United States there’s a disproportionate amount of people of color in prison and so we make up this story, this story that is made up, on behalf of creating the structures, keeping them in place, is that there’s something wrong with them, they are othered and whatever descriptive words you wanna put behind that othering, the reason why they’re in there is many more African people commit crimes, more Latinx people commit crimes, whatever it is – that’s the story that gets generated and that’s the story that upholds the same strctures. What would be amazing would be actually if you went in there and got those stories. If you actually learned that that person was a baby once and whatever their walk through life was, led them to where they are now. That’s not excusing their behavior but it’s understanding how they got there, and doing that I think creates a bridge within ourselves for people that don’t look like us, just to start to really connect at a level of who are you and how did you get here. What’s important to you? What do you value? And you might see with those individuals that are in prison, that you wanted the same exact things. That humanity, the unfortunate circumstances in our society lead you to make different choices. And some of those choices landed you where you are. 

KC – Who are you and how did you get here. We should start every conversation with that question, I feel. It makes me think of a documentary I watched and it was talking about, in the UK kids in the care system often come from abusive families, parents who are addicts, alcoholics, and so they go through the care system and are thrown around sort of different foster homes and people care about kids in the care system but as soon as they become 18 they become, say the homeless people that annoy people when they go home. You know, past the tube station. And it’s just interesting that switch, childhood to adulthood, and suddenly there’s no sympathy anymore. They shouldn’t be wasting all their money on drink, but we’ve not seen, if we’d had that life we might be in exactly the same position, in fact we probably would be. But I don’t know if we like to admit that because then that takes away our sense of pride that oh, I got myself where I am. 

MD – Mhm. I mean take away our sense of pride and it may have us feeling uncomfortable, maybe shameful that you, or guilty or whatever you’d put on there, that we didn’t do anything or can’t do anything. I may not have known that person but there’s nothing that I could do. But I just, I don’t think that that’s true. I don’t think that there’s nothing that you can do. Those are, we other those kids too, you know, when they’re adolescents. We other them and treat them as throwaway when, if we understood their story and they have a powerful one, we could see opportunities for – we could see opportunities for humanizing them as well and as we humanize them I think that then creates a door for empathy, but to do that we have to let go of something in ourselves, to be present in relationship with you. If we asked that a while ago, how have I begun to do that, and what’s coming up for me now is we have to let go of something in ourselves in service of the relationship with another. So what is it that you have to let go of, what belief, what ego, what pride, whatever it is, to stand in a relationship with someone else, to truly understand them and build empathy with them. I don’t think we’re willing to let go of stuff within ourselves, especially when we think we’re right. 

KC – Yeah! Or, I think we’re proud of where we’ve ended up. So I was speaking with a family the other day and they were speaking about they’re really proud of their kids and they feel like it was their family that created the kids in that way and, I found myself, yeah it’s something lovely to think about but it’s also not acknowledging the privileges that have also led you, it’s not completely created by you, there’s a lot of luck there. We inherit luck, our genetics are part luck, and I don’t know if we want to always accept that, that truth, we want to believe that we are the masters of our own destiny but it’s just not the truth. 

MD – It’s not the truth. I think one of the stories that follows a lot of my people is, from long, long ago that’s still attached to them, is being lazy and not wanting to work, wanting to live off the system. That’s such a false story, it’s just such a fallacy but people, to this day, to this very day, continue to repeat that story. Why? You know that’s not true because you see Black people in this country in particular working all the time, taking care of their families, doing what you’re doing, but there’s something that you wanna attach this too a group of people, how does that benefit you? What do you gain from that? Privilege is opportunity. It is the opportunity to elevate yourself in a way that maybe others aren’t able to. I don’t know if I’ve shared this before but I recently learned that my grandfather, when he got out of the service, he was a mechanic in WWII. When he got out of the service he wanted to open up an auto mechanic shop and he went to get a loan to do so. He was denied that loan. He tried again and he was denied that loan. What would have been different in our lives and the lives in his children and then his grandchildren and then his great grandchildren had he been able to get that loan to open up that mechanics shop? But he was denied that loan because of the color of his skin. It’s a function of opportunity and when people hear the word privilege there’s a division that comes up like I’m not privileged, I went through a difficult time in my life, let go of that and focus on opportunity and I’m sure this is another bridging opportunity, bridging conversation. If your family now owns land or your family now owns equipment, you know, a certain number of businesses, a brand, how did they get there? It was an opportunity. Somebody opened a door and believed in what they could do and created an opportunity that you now benefit from today. So when that door is closed to groups of people that opportunity is not there but it’s easier to land with the story of something’s wrong with them than to get into conversation and understand that we all went through the same things. Your grandfather probably wanted the same thing, be able to take care of his family, and he was given the opportunity to do so. Hearing my story might generate empathy, it’s like now I get it, now I see, this helps me understand so much more than I did before. Why? Because my story is my story, it's not in a book. It’s not in an article. It’s not theorized. It’s just me being human and my grandfather being human. And everything after that, all of us just being human and trying to survive. 

KC – I like your use of opportunity as opposed to privilege. Privilege, I know, is getting politicized quite a lot but it also assumes that there’s people who have privilege and people that don’t whereas opportunity feels like something that we can create more of and so it doesn’t feel so divisive in us/them. How do you feel about the language? 

MD – Yeah. I do. I mean we often talk about privilege and it’s become divisive. I mean, it’s a true word but people don’t understand it, especially people, like if you come from the dominant group, but you’ve come from a very poor background and you had to scrape and scrounge to get where you are now and when you have to scrape and scrounge to get where you are now and let’s say your neighbor has a different hue to you, different life experience, didn’t have to scrape and scrounge like you did, when we use that word privilege it automatically creates a division because I don’t, you know if I’m white, I don’t see myself as having privilege, look at where you got, look at where you are, how can you say that I have privilege? But let’s say that those two people got into a conversation, it’s not necessarily the fact that you had to scrape and scrounge and the other person who has a different hue did not, it was the opportunities that are afford to you more often than they are afforded to someone of color. And that cannot be argued against. Systemically that’s the truth. Maybe you didn’t get opportunity if you grew up in a very poor family, you had that background, maybe opportunities didn’t come to you easily but if you think across the spectrum of society they’re more available to you than they are to some other people, people with a different hue to their skin. They’re more available to you and I wonder if that’s an easier pill to swallow than to say, because we have a certain perspective about privilege, you know people in the opposite and people that live in 12-bedroom homes with pools and tennis courts in the backyard, yeah, that’s privilege, but what we’re talking about in the work of systemic equity is access and opportunity. And if we were to have a conversation about that we might be building those bridges. Disconnection keeps us from talking about those things. 

KC – And language can be so divisive in its own right. I wonder whether the conversation we should be having when we’re building those bridges are around opportunity, yeah how can we create more opportunities or share the opportunities so that we can live in that we space. 

MD – Yeah, I love what you just said, share the opportunities. I do some facilitation with Dare to Lead and Brené Brown makes a comment in one of her videos it’s like we have a piece of pie and it’s often viewed that the pie is very limited, only certain people can have two pieces and everybody else gets eight or whatever, but maybe there’s enough pie for everybody. Just because I have four doesn’t mean that you can’t have four, or just because I have five doesn’t mean that you can’t have five! It’s not limited. It’s available to us if we let go of the stories, the beliefs that we create in our mind that resources are so limited if I give you anything I’m gonna be without. And I think that tops up the fear and the fear promotes the division. 

KC – And maybe that’s the biggest myth and the most limiting story of all, that there isn’t enough to go around. 

MD – Yeah. Why wouldn’t there be? What’s the evidence that says there’s not enough, I’d love to see that. What’s the evidence that says there’s not? 

KC – Thank you so much Michelle, this was a hugely enlightening and powerful conversation and I look forward to building on it with you in part three next time. 

MD – Thank you, love the conversation as well. 

[Music outro begins 39:42] 

KC – Thanks to Michelle for that fascinating conversation. Here are my key takeaways. Right relationship is working for the power of me and you as opposed to just the me. If we were doing that we would be working more powerfully together to address some of the systemic issues that exist in the world. If we are to reduce our fear and increase our bravery in relationship we need to let go of some of the stories that we were told or socialized to believe. We must do the work together. Affinity groups, employee groups organized based on social identity, shared characteristics or life experiences can be beneficial but only if they’re done in partnership with other people. We all must do this together to heal and grow, no one got here by themselves. Your liberation is tied up in the liberation of everyone else. To move forward we need to sit in the fire, we need to stay with the hard work. Just like with jewels, like diamonds and rubies, they go through a process and are shaped by that. That process is not quick or easy but it is what’s necessary to create the change. To empathize with somebody else we need to let go of something in ourselves, it might be a story or a belief that stops us from leaning in and seeing the other person as they actually are. Thank you for listening to the Relationship Matters podcast. If you enjoyed this episode please share it with your colleagues and friends so that we can continue to spread these ideas across the globe, and if you haven’t already, do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode. And for more information on the ORSC courses please visit CRRGlobal.com. For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time. We believe Relationship Matters from humanity to nature to the larger whole. 

[Music outro 42:07 – end]